Improve your chairside manner

on 12 August 2014

The design capabilities of today’s digital software means dentists are now able to meet the functional needs and aesthetic desires of patients in a single visit, using technology such as chairside economical restoration of esthetic ceramics (CEREC). Although CEREC technology has been available for more than 25 years, it is in the last decade, with the increasingly fast pace of digitisation, that CEREC has come into its own. Now widely regarded as one of the leading chairside digital platforms for in-surgery restorative solutions, CEREC puts practitioners in control of the restorative process, turning the advantages of digital dentistry to a tangible benefit for many thousands of patients.

CEREC Omnicam is the latest offering from Sirona that signals a significant step forward on the digital road. With a slimline intraoral camera, this powderless system is perfectly comfortable for patients and provides a digital scan of each quadrant that can be manipulated in multiple ways to create the perfect tooth design.

The quality of a restorative case is often judged by the integrity of its margins and the secret to a great margin is to have smooth preps. The image resolution of CEREC enables every part of the margin to be seen in minute detail, magnifying every discrepancy so it can be adjusted accordingly, helping achieve accuracy to within 5-10 microns.

CEREC can be used for a wide range of indications – inlays, onlays, posterior full crowns and implants. CEREC inlays are a perfect alternative to composite when replacing old amalgam fillings and the materials are now so advanced that it’s possible to create anterior crowns at the chair-side, via the in-surgery milling of multi-coloured blocks. These blocks produce excellent realistic aesthetics, which with the addition of some staining and glazing, make anteriors look very natural.

A whole new discipline

The advances in digital technology have now made an efficient interface between CEREC and other digital equipment possible, resulting in a truly integrated digital workflow. An example of this is the way that images derived from digital scanning and design software have been partnered with data from cone-beam scanners such as Sirona’s XG 3D, resulting revolutionary advances in implant diagnostics and treatment planning. Jamie Newlands, principal at The Berkeley Clinic, Glasgow, is a great advocate of this digital integration: ‘The seamless integration of CEREC with the Sirona Galileos XG 3D means I can create a virtual model and design a crown or bridge in the usual way, then transfer and integrate this image directly with the 3D data, ensuring the best possible positioning and alignment of the implant, abutment and restoration. This new way of working is opening up a whole new discipline for CEREC and expanding the use of digital techniques into even more treatment areas.’

Not just an in-surgery system

Many people mistakenly regard CEREC as just an in-surgery system, but this is not the case and using CEREC doesn’t mean the end of your relationship with your laboratory, in fact quite the reverse. Many dentists combine their in-surgery scanning capability with traditional laboratory techniques by using CEREC to create digital impressions, which can be sent to their technician through a secure and encrypted communication platform. This way dentists get all the benefits of speed, accuracy and aesthetics, perfectly matched to the type of restoration being created. This flexibility means that patients receive the treatment most appropriate to their needs.